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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Ghost in the Rocking Chair

I am now 55 years old, this happened 35 years ago. My husband and I were living in Monroe where he was going to school to be a pharmacist. I was working for a local bank. We bought a small trailer and moved into a trailer park. Our families gave us some old furniture to help us get started. My Mother-in-law gave us an old rocker which we had to stain and recover.

Approximately one year prior to my husband graduating, I became pregnant with my first child. After seven months into my pregnancy I was laid off. My husband had to continue his schooling; as well as work 4 to 5 hours at night to make ends meet. In my last month of pregnancy I was sitting in my living room around 10:00 p.m. on the sofa watching television with the lights turned off. All of a sudden my old rocker started rocking on it's on, a slow steady rock. My heart started pounding and I could not believe what I was seeing. I was terrified!

I went to my next door neighbors and told her that I couldn't sleep and was waiting for my husband to come home. I did not want to tell her what I had just seen. When my husband came home he would not believe me and said it was because the rocker was sitting over the air condition vent. Now, this rocker was very heavy and I did not believe that one little vent could have made the rocker rock. My husband moved the rocker away from the vent.

My husband continue to work late and two or three times a week, the rocker would rock. Again, it was only late at night and when I was alone. I made every excuse to my neighbors that I could, just to visit until he came home. My husband was really getting tired of hearing me and said it was probably stress over my pregnancy and being laid off.

Well, it continue on until my child was a year old. It was not an every day thing and as she got older (walking stage) it ceased all together. By this time we had moved to another town in south Louisiana where he found a job as a Pharmacist. We moved the trailer with us and again moved into a trailer park.

When my daughter was two years old, I became pregnant again. In the meantime we were building a large home and I was busy buying furniture and appliances for the house. Again, I was in my 8 month of pregnancy at this time.

My husband's boss had a daughter who at the time was 10 years old and she fell in love with my daughter and wanted to come visit every weekend. One weekend she wanted to spend the night and she slept on the couch. At 1:00 a.m. she came to our bedroom crying that she wanted to go home and would not tell us why. My husband called his boss and brought her home. The next day, I visited her mother to see what the problem was and her mother said that she thought she had seen my rocker rocking and it had scared her half to death. I just told her, well she was probably just dreaming.

My second child was a boy, and the whole thing started all over again. Always, when my children were sleeping and my husband wasn't home. He was attending many meetings and was getting home fairly late several times a month. No matter what I did or what I said he would not believe me. He swore up and down not for me to tell a soul and I never have up until the last several years. The rocking again finally stopped after my son started walking, (which for him was a little over a year old.)

In the meantime we moved into our home, which had four bedrooms. I had bought all new furniture and did not want the rocker. My husband said that we would put it in the guest bedroom until we saw his mother and ask her what she wanted to do with it. I left the rocker in the guest bedroom and only went in there when I had to vacuum. I became pregnant for my third child and I kept the door shut and would never, never go in the room.

Sometimes late at night when my husband was not home, I would pass down the hallway and I could hear it creaking and creaking. One time I swore I heard a low voice signing. But I never went in that room the entire time I was pregnant nor after I had my last child which was another girl.

Several months had passed after I gave birth and my husband called and said that two Jaycees were coming to pick up the rocker; as he had donated the rocker to the Jaycees so that they could use it at Christmas time at Wal-Mart for Santa Claus to sit in to talk to the children. Two of the local Jaycees came to my house and I showed them where the rocker was. They commented on how heavy it was and it took both of them to lift the rocker into the bed of the truck.

The rest of this story is what the Jaycees told my husband and me as well: One of the Jaycees was driving and the other one was sitting in the passenger seat. The passenger saw something out of the corner of his eye and immediately turned around and said "Oh My God!" The driver looked in the rear view mirror. Both men said with their voices cracking, I have never in my life seen anything like this before. They were traveling about 30 miles an hour down some back roads and they said the chair just kinda floated up in the air - a little higher then the top of the bed and just flew out onto the side of the highway. The driver pulled over and they both were in total shock. They picked up the pieces of the rocker and went to the pharmacy where my husband was working.

My husband thought they were joking and thought I had told them what had been happening all these years and they both said, No, she never told us anything. Well my husband would not elaborate on the subject and both Jaycees returned to my house to get my side of the story. I told them everything that had happened and I could not believe that two adults had actually finally seen something and I was not just seeing things.

A month or so had passed and I was at my mother-in-law's house when I told her that we had donated the rocker to the Jaycees to use for Santa Claus to sit in to speak to the children. But before I could tell here that the rocker (had fell out the truck) I couldn't tell her what really happened. She said, oh that it is wonderful, Aunt Rose, would have loved that, you see Aunt Rose had 6 children and 13 grandchildren. She rocked every one of her children and grandchildren in that rocker. In fact, one of her children found her dead one morning in the rocker. She had passed away one night and stayed in her rocker until someone had found her. I felt goosebumps all through my body.

I then thought to myself, you know, I was really scared all those times I had seen the rocker rocking, but nothing very bad happened, other than that I was terrified. But now I have come to realize that she just wanted to rock her children, the way I had been rocking mine.

Two years ago I submitted my story to another site and I had an email from the Jaycee who had witness this many, many years ago. He knew it was me who had written it. As it happens he was an editor for the local newspaper and was looking for two popular ghost stories for his head line in the upcoming Halloween section. Well, the story you have just read was published on the first page of our local newspaper.